The Black Week of the Black Family
by Ramzes
Summary: Sirius Black is eighteen. He has a crying baby, a mad neighbour, an unfortunate meeting with a moving car and a wife with very  err  private problems. Can he make it without going mad? AU. Somewhere between Ch. 1 and 2 of The New House Rules.


**Disclaimer: Nothing's mine. **

There were days when people wondered whether they'd stay alive to take care of their babies.

Angela had no idea where she should start the story from, there'd been too many events in their lives the last week and none of them too happy. Just one more, and she thought she would go mad.

First, the dog was hit by a moving car.

The stupid mutt, known as Padfoot, was just as careless pedestrian in his dog form as he was in his human one. He was convinced that the streets were made for his personal use and saw no problem in stepping from the pavement and onto the roadway from time to time without bothering to look around, so, of course, the driver who hit him could not be blamed for hitting him. He could be blamed, however, for dragging him under the car for almost twenty meters without even bothering to stop. Then, Padfoot ran to their flat – this time on the sidewalk, thank Merlin – and started whining in front of the block, the idea of changing back and opening the door by himself never crossing his mind. Angela almost fainted, when she saw the blood in his fur.

At home, there was more whining. The dog was standing in the corridor, muddy, shaking, with a concussion of the brain and whimpering. The baby was in Angela's arms, also crying, because he was startled. Then, she had to change Sirius back, to take him to St. Mungo's, to think of a believable explanation why a fully grown man had been dragged under a car, waiting to see whether there would be any permanent damage to his brain... There was none.

"Not that we'd have noticed the difference anyway," James said cheerfully.

"Merlin, Sirius really is a lucky dog," Remus agreed. "This was his second meeting with a moving car."

"When was the first one?" Angela asked.

"Oh, we had just learned how to transform," Peter said. "During the summer, Padfoot was posing at – err – "

"What Peter means is that Padfoot saw two girls that day and decided to impress them, he started dancing and prancing, and finally he fell in front of a moving car,' James explained. "Fortunately, it caused him no harm, just twirled him around and that was it."

Angela sighed. "And of course, he did not learn anything from this little accident, did he?"

No one answered her.

Second, the baby would not stop crying.

The colic was at its highest stage. What was worse was the fact that even when Cane did not have colic, he _still_ refused to shut up. In the second month of his life, he was supposed to keep his head lifted for a moment or two when he was placed on his stomach, but he, in fact, kept it this way for almost six seconds, which led to exhaustion and a sudden thumping sound, when he crashed his head on the pillow. Angela's heart frozen with fear each time she heard this familiar sound.

It was obvious that Cane was looking for something. He was trying to turn his head and see it. It was not his mother, because she was right there; it was not his father, because Sirius was there, too; it was not the flashing musical ornament hanging over his crib, and neither was it his favorite stuffed toy. There was only one explanation: Cane was looking for Padfoot, his big, furry friend, who accompanied them on their walks and often lied on the threshold of the bedroom, while Angela was playing with Cane and who could bark so joyously. Unfortunately, due to his concussion of the brain, Sirius could not concentrate enough to turn into Padfoot, so Cane would not stop crying – unfaltering, high-pitched wailing. They would carry him, they would dance with him – Angela already felt that she would break in two parts in the middle – just to shut him up, but no and no, Cane refused to give up, so they kept trying and wondering whether he was their real baby or a Death Eater in disguise.

Third, they had a vampire just under their feet and she constantly tore their nerves apart.

No, it was not a real vampire – they lived in a Muggle building, after all. _By the way, a real vampire would be a nicer fate_, Angela often thought. It was an old, red-haired, seventy years old wicked woman – Sirius always warned Lily to take care not to turn into her one day – who tormented all her neighbours. They had named her Marilyn Manson. There were only eight flats in their building, yet she had found pretexts to get on everyone's nerves. In the night, the neighbours from the last floor ran the water in the bathroom, she said, and the sound woke her up, so they should wait until seven in the morning, before they could take a shower. There was a little family shop in the block and its owners should clean the inner courtyard and be careful not to encumber the first floor with wares. If a random bottle was broken, that would lead to a shouting lecture about how smelly the whole building had become. Well, Sirius and Angela had the luck to live above her and the dirty hag had decided that their fridge was a machine that they would run only in the night just to piss her off. The funniest thing was that, according to her, it was a machine for illegal musical records and she would call the police. Angela got that explanation one night, when her neighbour rang the bell at one o'clock in the night and started shouting at her to stop the bloody engine… Angela yelled at her to go to the madhouse where she belonged. Cane had begun to cry again, startled by the frantic ringing of the bell. The next morning, Angela and Sirius were told by the other neighbours that the old woman had been calling the police _each night_ for a week because of the false machine. Of course, the sellers from the shop had told each time the policemen that the old hag was mad and the Blacks were a young family with a baby, and if they had got a machine into the flat, everyone would have noticed that. The policemen had climbed up the stairs, listened in front on the flat and then left, not hearing anything. At the end, when she had rung them at midnight to summon them, they had told her off and had stopped coming, hence the midnight visit of the old lady herself. Now, the vampire kept knocking on her ceiling with a rolling-pin. They ignored her completely, so she walked in each room and knocked, because she did not know where exactly they stood.

"Wouldn't it be easy for you if you just reinstate the Silencing Charm over the flat, so she wouldn't be able to hear anything?" Remus asked in the complete silence.

"No way! I'm not giving this bitch the satisfaction! Besides, that would not stop her imagination. She'd just cook up something else."

James shook his head sympathetically. "I remember her," he said, "from the time when you were still single, Sirius. She was a real bitch tight then."

"She still is," Sirius confirmed.

Angela took a bite of her fruit salad. "Sirius is not allowed to let himself be provoked by her," she told their guests. "Under any circumstances. Before he knows it, he will hex her paralyzed and then he would be held responsible as if he had attacked a human being."

Everyone laughed. Cane, in Remus' lap, clearly had no idea what this all was about, but he blindly joined the other's good mood.

"Now, Marilyn Manson the Vampire is mad with rage, because she keeps knocking and no one answers her," Sirius said. 'Excuse me, I have to run the water in the bathroom, hoping to drive her madder – "

Fourth, after seventy days of recuperation after the hard childbirth, Angela was allowed to have sex again. Finally!

They did not tell their friends about _this_ one. Immediately after the consultation with the Healer, Angela returned beaming to the flat, supplied with a device that was supposed to keep her moist inside and had a slightly heating effect. In the night, when Cane finally fell asleep, they made a full use of it – too full, as it turned out. After the third repetition, Angela felt quite abraded and the bloody device had heated her so well that she thought she might burst into flames right now and Sirius had to cool her with water from his wand. The final result was that they were now wondering whether they could do anything and whether it would hurt again. Such a pity, after all this waiting.

"And you are still breathing in the middle of all this?" James wondered aloud. Somewhere between the third and the fifth glass of Firewhiskey Sirius' unwillingness to talk about the last detail in his black week had vanished.

"It's not so bad," Sirius assured him.

"Isn't it?"

Sirius shook his head. "No, it's an adventure."

"It is?"

Sirius nodded energetically. "It's an adventure," he repeated. "Not being able to sleep. Carrying the baby in two shifts. Trying to keep your hearing intact. Trying not to be pissed off by the old vampire. Thinking of all the ways you can make sex gentler." He laughed. "And this is all because of Cane." He looked at his son, who was happily drooling over Remus' shirt. The next moment, the wetness of the said shirt was due not only to Cane's drooling. Sirius' grin broadened, while Remus was trying to keep the baby away from his already soaking clothes. "You are my adventure, aren't you, Cane?"

James grinned and sighed in the same time. "Lily," he said wisely, "we'd better watch it; you can see what the future holds in store for us, if we don't."

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**A. N. Please, PLEASE tell me what you think of this**** oneshot!**

5


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